Disney has filed a patent for an emotionally responsive AI interactive character, possibly creating a way for a more emotional and personal interaction with characters in the future.

Emotionally Responsive AI Interactive Character Patent

The patent, filed by Disney Enterprises on June 29, 2026, describes an AI-powered character that can use the memories of a guest and emotional context to make interactions feel more personal.

The abstract reads:

There is provided a method including eliciting, via an artificial intelligence interactive character (AIIC), a reminiscence from a user, predicting, using a trained machine learning (ML) model, at least one user memory feature from the reminiscence, computing, for each memory node of the plurality of memory nodes, a bond factor between the predicted at least one user memory feature and the one or more memory features stored in the memory node to provide a plurality of bond factors, determining that none of the plurality of bond factors satisfies a threshold, and in response to determining that none of the plurality of bond factors satisfies the threshold: updating the memory data structure by inserting a new memory node storing the predicted at least one user memory feature in the memory data structure; and generating, using the updated memory data structure, an interactive communication for execution by the AlIC. 1

Essentially, the technology will allow a character to respond to more than just a question or statement by the guest. It asks the guest to share a memory, and the AI model considers the people, places, activities, and emotional states of the memory. The technology compares the guest’s experience to the character’s experience (which come from a “memory bank”) to create a response. This may include speech, facial expressions, or movements.

If there is no relevant memory to match, the character makes up a new one that gets added to the memory bank. The patent itself calls this a “hallucinated memory,” but it’s more improvising a backstory instead of lying to guests.

If put in use, this could create more personable and unique interactions with robotic, animated, and other types of characters in the parks and in other environments instead of scripted interactions. We may or may not ever see this technology put to use, and if we do it could be years. Disney has not made any announcements related to this patent.

Other patents recently published by Disney describe possible improvements to real-time motion capture for animated projects, automatic removal of crowds and other unwanted background elements from photos, and the technology for the “HoloTile Floor.”

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